Japan Bound

The Japanese government has enhanced entry control for travelers who stay in China (except Hong Kong and Macao) and fly to Japan directly from China (except Hong Kong and Macao) since January 8 2023, requiring pre-departure negative certificate (72 hours before departure) and PCR test on arrival.

the number of international arrivals in Japan almost doubled to 934,500 in November 2022 from 498,600 in the previous month. The largest source market in November 2022 was South Korea with 315,400 visitors, which were 53.8% more than even November 2019.

Virgin Australia announced launch of its first Japan service between Cairns and Haneda with the Boeing 737-8 on June 28 2023, expanding code-share flights with ANA. They expect that Japanese passengers may be 60 to 70% of the total on average through a year.

Princes Cruise will restart cruises in Japan in March 2023, offering 22 courses on 32 departure days in the period between March 13 and November 9 2023.

The occupancy rate of 116 hotels in Kyoto City in October 2022 was up 9.3 points over September 2022 or up 24.9 points over October 2021 to 63.7%. Japanese guest nights in October 2022 totaled 533,611, which was 12.4% more nights than September 2022.

The total number of Japanese guest nights in October 2022 (provisionally) was up 32.5% year on year to 42.1 million, which were up 5.8% even compared to October 2019. The occupancy rate was 52.6% overall, higher than 49.5% in September 2022.

Navitime Japan, a Japan’s leading navigation solution provider, says ‘Japan Travel by NAVITIME’ have increased rapidly in September and October 2022. Searches by users in Asia particularly grew, and Hokkaido, Yamanashi and Oita were more searched.

Japan Culture and Technology (J-CAT) recently launched a local experience booking platform ‘Otonami’ listing a variety of high quality tour contents.

The number of international arrivals in Japan in October 2022 was 498,600, which were up 2.5 times from 206,500 in September 2022, but remained a 80% decrease compared to three years ago.

Spending in Japan by international visitors for three months from July to September 2022 was estimated at 163.1 billion JPY or 310,000 JPY a day.

Malaysia Airlines has augmented its Kuala Lumpur-Japan network since November 2022 to meet growing traveler demands from Malaysia, increasing flights for Haneda and Narita.

Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) has restarted full-scale promotions to the world, following practical open of the border on October 11 2022, focusing on adventure tourism as well as higher-valued travel from Europe, U.S. and Australia particularly.

Digital Agency of Japan will integrate ‘My SOS,’ a health certificate app, into ‘Visit Japan Web’ on November 1 2022 to make faster immigration possible.

The number of international arrivals in Japan in September 2022 was 206,500, which were the first over 200,000 a month in the pandemic. Compared to August 2019 (2,272,883 arrivals), the result remained a 90.9% decrease.

Universal Studios Japan (USJ) and Ant Group signed a corporate marketing partnership contract to introduce Alipay+ payment service in the park, expecting that the partnership will raise payment conveniences for visitors to Japan from Asia.

Searches for travel in Japan on major OTAs have been growing since the Japanese government announced the remaining travel restrictions on foreigners would be lifted on October 11 2022.

the number of international arrivals in Japan in August 2022 was 169,800 only. The partial reopen of the inbound travel market since June 2022 did not work well, though arrivals were more than 100,000 for five consecutive months.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced that Japan will fully open the border on October 11 2022 by lifting visa requirement for foreigners and the limited entry cap a day.

Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) has launched a digital promotion using the AR technology in Singapore, in which a user can enjoy virtual experience of the famous summer festival ‘Nebuta’ in Aomori Prefecture on a smartphone.

The tourism promotion committee for Taiwan in Japan met the counterpart in Taiwan in Taoyuan City, Taiwan for 2022 Japan-Taiwan Tourism Summit to share a goal to achieve 7.5 million two-way travelers a year.